My understanding is that we, Russia and possibly China, have had anti-satellite capability for decades. The strategy that the Great Powers have had from the 60's on have probably changed. In 1960 there were ~20 satellites in orbit (all countries). in 2026 there are over 16,000 satellites in orbit.
I think we probably view using anti-sat weapons on the same level of using nukes. "Losing all satellites in orbit would cause catastrophic, immediate crisis in the U.S., collapsing GPS navigation, financial transaction timing, cellular communications, and power grid synchronizations. Society would not end, but daily life, logistics, and national defense would suffer severe, expensive, and chaotic setbacks."
To be fair “grapple and deorbit” is almost certainly at minimum a mission kill, with debris limited to one chunk on a toasty trajectory. “Blow it up” is thinking inside the well established and demonstrated box.
Sure. But once the horse is out of the barn you can't be left wishing you'd planned for it.
The Chinese have already demonstrated they have no regard for the trash they leave from normal launches. No reason to believe they will suddenly decide to keep it pristine when the shit hits the fan.
Russians are likely in the same camp but just don't have much to work with these days.
...or you can watch FIXEDITs DCS videos. They got removed from YouTube but the Internet is forever! Buns intercept of Northbound badgers is first up in the queue.
Wonderful videos, and thanks for posting the links. The F-19 Spectre/Ghostrider/"Frisbee" that made it into RSR was quite a bit different than the F-117 Nighthawk turned out to be. JD Webster, in his excellent Air Superiority boardgame, gave the F-19 a three-view based on the 1:48 Testors F-19 model and performance in the range of 4th generation supersonic fighters. Can't find my F-19 Aircraft Data Card at the moment, alas. :-)
To be fair, LRAAM is easily pronounced “elram,” which in the aviator community is a short hurdle to jump from “am-ram,” the current AIM-120 series, and as far as I know doesn’t even have a cool name like Malice or something similar listed anywhere.
I’d push back lightly on the need for this missile to have multiple modes of operation for surface or SEAD employment, at least for now. I’d prefer a missile that does one job efficiently and is easy to use for the operator vice a do-all Swiss Army knife of a missile that pushes the cost per unit up and takes away from programs dedicated to those mission sets.
I really feel like production lines are already their own Gordian knot.
I’m being hyperbolic, but it feels like we’ve gotten into a cycle of producing artisanal missiles, each one lovingly crafted by a hermit who painstakingly pours his heart into each component, leading to 7 missiles made a year or something abysmally low that’s nowhere near the predicted (or even current) demand.
We need to be stamping these rounds out like .22LR. Adding bells and whistles will increase testing and development timelines when we already needed these missiles 15 years ago.
I want Raytheon/Lockheed/Boeing to prove they can meet one contract on time and on budget before I dream of asking for one capability more.
I want there to be so many that when AOAN Shmuckatelli drops one on the flight deck, gunner just shrugs and orders the FOD search as they zero the electronics and dump it over the side bc they’re pulling a metric butt load more up from the magazine.
I want there to be so many that we can even let the Growlers carry them bc the fighters have too many (not that we would do that, but you get what I’m saying).
Whatever ammo fits that description, please feel free to fill in.
Have you had to “luck” to try plowing thru a Mil contract. Make the bible seem short. You have to sub out work to unqualified suppliers in 45 states, then the inspections, then do we really need 5 digit tolerances on something that will explode.
L-Ram works. But a pronunciation guide in ALL CAPS doesn't give me the clues I need to speak the acronym professionally. I was born before Hooked on Phonics was a thing.
Every little capability you want adds years to the acquisition timeline. If you goldplate it, like Sal is asking, it'll be $30mil for each missile and in five years there will be twelve operational rounds, all of which will be cycled between the SCS CVW like the town bicycle. In ten years we'll have 36 rounds and be outranged even further than we are now.
Or, you put the weapon into service in as an anti-air weapon, and develop additional modes for it while you are already building and deploying block one…
That way, you get the long range missile now, and can add more capability in later blocks.
Making the long range missile also be a long range HARM, especially if retaskable on the pylon, is a really good idea, and would, re above, in fact put them on Growlers.
Interestingly enough, the fit and form are very close to the Harpoon. After deductions in speed and range from a zero velocity launch from a Harpoon canister is there enough performance leftover to justify installation on surface ships?
My impression of that internal bay is that there's a hell of a lot of electronics and system connectors exposed once the bay is open during flight. What could possibly go wrong?
The F-35 can carry up to 22,000 pounds of bombs and missiles in “beast mode,” but stealth missions typically limit it to 4–8 internal weapons.
Internal Weapons Capacity
In stealth mode, the F-35 carries weapons internally to maintain a low radar signature. Each F-35 has two internal bays, each with inboard and outboard stations. The F-35A and F-35C can carry up to 2,500 pounds per outboard station, allowing for large bombs like GBU-31 JDAMs or multiple smaller precision weapons such as GBU-39 SDBs. Typically, an F-35 can carry up to 8 SDBs internally or a combination of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions while preserving stealth
. The F-35B, due to its lift fan for STOVL operations, has smaller internal bays and cannot carry larger bombs like the GBU-31, limiting it to lighter precision-guided munitions
When stealth is not a priority, the F-35 can carry additional ordnance on external hardpoints, dramatically increasing its payload. In this configuration, known as “beast mode,” the F-35 can carry up to 22,000 pounds of combined internal and external munitions, including large bombs and missiles
Air-to-air missiles: AIM-120 AMRAAM (up to 6 internally with Sidekick adapter)
Standoff missiles: JASSM, LRASM
Anti-radiation missiles: AARGM-ER
The exact loadout depends on the mission, with stealth operations favoring internal carriage and high-threat environments, while “beast mode” maximizes destructive power at the cost of radar visibility
The note re the Marines F-35B raises an interesting point, where Marine pilots operating off the America class baby flattops and tiny island jungle landing pads could carry 250nm A2A missiles.
Of course they have to be fed targets - is there any funded air combat droid design with space for a good long range air search radar? Or maybe one of smalll floaty combat droids with a baby AEGIS? Or is Malice what the long-not-yet-appearing satellite AWACS is supposed to queue, and thus we circle back to the ASAT discussion?
FWIW, it appears that the USMC has pretty much accepted lack of stealth for load. Most of the C's that I've seen pictured in operation have external pylons installed.
Maybe they keep some slick for door kickers, but as you would expect, they seem to prefer more ordnance.
Anything wrong with designing and building a missile to fill a desperately needed capability gap (LRA to Air)...and then discovering it can do "other" things? Requires a multi-mission platform (air to ground, air to air...air to space?) which is largely the norm cross services, right?
All the Pentagon weapons and funding profiles are included (for future discussions).
Then look at PDF page 89 (internal page 5-21) for the MACE budget summary, including the first batch of 353 missiles being procured in FY2027 from a new contractor.
A modern-day AIM-54 Phoenix. I heartily approve. As you said, it's even got the cool name. Another website suggested it had ramjet propulsion and an intake like the British Meteor, but I haven't seen a clean enough picture to tell.
"Multi-Mission Affordable Capacity Effector (MACE) is a long-range, air-launched cruise missile engineered to redefine maritime dominance through affordable mass." The real name is not really that cool. "Capacity Effector"? Why not just say what it is. An anti-ship missile and figure out an acronym from that? While this missile's description talks about easy integration and manufacturing of current technologies, these stupid names are a guarantee of major problems. Years ago the Army couldn't say "truck" and the Navy couldn't say "frigate" or "minesweeper". And look what that brought us. If SECWAR wants to "man-up" the "Department of War" the first thing he needs to do is stop attaching stupid names to stuff meant to fight wars.
But it ISN'T an antiship missile. It's a 'cheap' multi-purpose air-to-ground munition, and I don't think attaching funny names to stuff is the reason we've been whiffing in the war-fighting arena. That business goes much farther back than even the Clinton years, where we started to have the troubles.
The problem with US Military warfighting isn't men in gucci tree-suits coming up with tongue-in-cheek names for stuff. The problem with the US Military warfighting is that the civilian command and control doesn't really want to do warfighting. That's both parties and it spans the era from Bush Senior through to today.
We had Bill Clinton not wanting to send armor to Somalia because he didn't like the optics (that turned out well). We had Bush Junior doing the Battle of Faluja twice because he couldn't find his balls when the Europeans started wagging their fingers at him. We had the Obama DEI years. We had the Biden 'should-we or shouldn't-we support Ukraine' years. Even today, we have the on-again/off-again Powerplant and Bridge Week.
The problem is the civilian leadership. It's pretty much always been the civilian leadership. They appoint the bad generals. They keep promoting them, even after they're shown to be dirtbags. They sign off on the pie-in-the-sky fantasy procurements or fail to manage the rock-simple 'must-have' procurements. (E.g. Constellation was as much a failure of the SecNav and SecDef to keep their eyes on the ball as it was NAVSEA's malfeasance.)
Your comment is a pretty good assessment, but we've had a few generals as SECDEF recently too. How would rate them considering what happened on their watch? And more than a few civilian bosses made great strides. Reagan's boy, Casper Weinberger, for one. Lead the defense buildup that bankrupted and broke the Soviet Union.
Lloyd Austin -- Swamp creature who was often asleep at the switch and too concerned with social issues. Connie went from 'minimum change' to 'gotta' meet NAVSEA or die' under his watch.
Esper -- Decent but didn't have enough time in the job to really turn the mess around.
Mattis -- Big reputation from Iraq but a swamp creature who didn't want to follow orders and wanted to continue our 'forever wars'.
Don't necessarily disagree. Power consumption for EASR was much higher than I think the Italians realized before committing to this. However, SecNav and SecDef should have stepped in and said 'no', it's not going to be FREMM. At the very least, they shouldn't have let that mess carry on for four years with no progress and endlessly missed milestones.
But Officers aren't promoted by officers. They're promoted by Congress and the President. While officers of relatively low rank are frequently given a 'by', Officers of Major and higher have been held up by Congress and the President for perceived offenses. Ie if the president wants to do his homework and look at who he's promoting, he can.
Cool missile. Very nice to have. But the other half of the Tomcat+Phoenix calculus was the unrefuelled range and loiter time (and dash speed) of the F-14. Hopefully the flying combat droid tanker and the next CV-capable fighter will jointly (hah!) restore some of that range advantage over the needs-buddy-tanker-in-the-pattern current F/A airframe.
And begging to differ, the bingo of the bulls is marketing speak. If it were written by an engineering grad it would have formulas and graphs, and struggle in any resemblance to english.
BTW, the author, Jerry Hendrix, Capt, USN (ret), is the guy at the White House/OMB heading the resurrection of Navy shipbuilding and the defense industrial base.
Let's see. Sm6 has agility and active seeker. Sm3 has a 3rd stage with 2 pulse motor in 13" diameter for oh, 20+ years. Both have killed a wide variety of things that fly in and above atmosphere. 2 dots make a line, 3 a plane, ...just thinking outloud
You are not wrong, but note it’s a 4d problem, with the time variable contribution gettin big when you are talking orbital velocities. This is the main problem with intercepting ballistic missiles - they are just moving so darn fast - and sats in orbit (in almost every case - boosted hypersonic motor attack profiles excepted) are faster.
Love that anti-sat potential!
Especially if it is delivered by an F-15! :)
Do we really want to kill a satellite with that big a mess in this day and age?
Tactical antisatellite warfare -will- happen.
What sane military ignores the high ground because it might be messy if its fought over?
May as well be ready for it.
My understanding is that we, Russia and possibly China, have had anti-satellite capability for decades. The strategy that the Great Powers have had from the 60's on have probably changed. In 1960 there were ~20 satellites in orbit (all countries). in 2026 there are over 16,000 satellites in orbit.
I think we probably view using anti-sat weapons on the same level of using nukes. "Losing all satellites in orbit would cause catastrophic, immediate crisis in the U.S., collapsing GPS navigation, financial transaction timing, cellular communications, and power grid synchronizations. Society would not end, but daily life, logistics, and national defense would suffer severe, expensive, and chaotic setbacks."
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/2024/what-would-our-world-look-like-without-gps-satellites-.html
Thats my point.
“Antisat” is no longer going to be a ‘Special’ warfare area.
It will be a part of tactical operations.
Nothing tactical about starting an anti-satellite war. That is similar to saying you are going to have a tactical nuclear war.
Yes, but the how has changed. Send a satellite to kill a satellite, or some other means where we don't create a debris field.
We might be concerned about the debris issue. Doubtful that either the Chinese or the Russians would be in a state of War.
Didn't say to not do it. Do it in such a way as we win and they lose. The mess probably hurts us more.
"or some other means where we don't create a debris field."
Another hi tech PowerPoint promise for $$$$.
Not to say that wont be (is not) in the mix but kinetics are an inevitability.
To be fair “grapple and deorbit” is almost certainly at minimum a mission kill, with debris limited to one chunk on a toasty trajectory. “Blow it up” is thinking inside the well established and demonstrated box.
"The mess probably hurts us more."
"They" know that.
So the advantage goes to them.
And that's why you always need to prioritize targets.
Sure. But once the horse is out of the barn you can't be left wishing you'd planned for it.
The Chinese have already demonstrated they have no regard for the trash they leave from normal launches. No reason to believe they will suddenly decide to keep it pristine when the shit hits the fan.
Russians are likely in the same camp but just don't have much to work with these days.
I have to wonder how close they are to taking out starlink constellations?
The Chinese and the Russians have about as much concern about space debris as they do about Earth-based environmental concerns. Basically, none.
*Amelia "Buns" Nakamura has entered the chat*
Very nice! Makes me want to dust off my copy of Red Storm Rising!
...or you can watch FIXEDITs DCS videos. They got removed from YouTube but the Internet is forever! Buns intercept of Northbound badgers is first up in the queue.
https://archive.org/details/RSRVideos/BUNS+(1440p_60fps_VP9-160kbit_Opus).webm
Wonderful videos, and thanks for posting the links. The F-19 Spectre/Ghostrider/"Frisbee" that made it into RSR was quite a bit different than the F-117 Nighthawk turned out to be. JD Webster, in his excellent Air Superiority boardgame, gave the F-19 a three-view based on the 1:48 Testors F-19 model and performance in the range of 4th generation supersonic fighters. Can't find my F-19 Aircraft Data Card at the moment, alas. :-)
To be fair, LRAAM is easily pronounced “elram,” which in the aviator community is a short hurdle to jump from “am-ram,” the current AIM-120 series, and as far as I know doesn’t even have a cool name like Malice or something similar listed anywhere.
I’d push back lightly on the need for this missile to have multiple modes of operation for surface or SEAD employment, at least for now. I’d prefer a missile that does one job efficiently and is easy to use for the operator vice a do-all Swiss Army knife of a missile that pushes the cost per unit up and takes away from programs dedicated to those mission sets.
Always happy to be proven wrong, though.
My preference would be for concentrating on production of one model for one thing to build inventory before we start splitting production lines.
I really feel like production lines are already their own Gordian knot.
I’m being hyperbolic, but it feels like we’ve gotten into a cycle of producing artisanal missiles, each one lovingly crafted by a hermit who painstakingly pours his heart into each component, leading to 7 missiles made a year or something abysmally low that’s nowhere near the predicted (or even current) demand.
We need to be stamping these rounds out like .22LR. Adding bells and whistles will increase testing and development timelines when we already needed these missiles 15 years ago.
I want Raytheon/Lockheed/Boeing to prove they can meet one contract on time and on budget before I dream of asking for one capability more.
"artisanal"
In context, I couldn't help pronouncing this "artist anal" in my head
Considering the failure rates of certain .22LR lines.... maybe Federal 9mm bulk.
More like Wolf steel case...
I want disgusting amounts of these missiles.
I want there to be so many that when AOAN Shmuckatelli drops one on the flight deck, gunner just shrugs and orders the FOD search as they zero the electronics and dump it over the side bc they’re pulling a metric butt load more up from the magazine.
I want there to be so many that we can even let the Growlers carry them bc the fighters have too many (not that we would do that, but you get what I’m saying).
Whatever ammo fits that description, please feel free to fill in.
Have you had to “luck” to try plowing thru a Mil contract. Make the bible seem short. You have to sub out work to unqualified suppliers in 45 states, then the inspections, then do we really need 5 digit tolerances on something that will explode.
I am but a humble trigger puller, the machinations of a prime contract are well beyond my meager faculties.
Some of those decals on the missile look like they're out of alignment. More sloppy work by the Chinese...?
You just scan where they ended up for the equivalent of H’wood mocap processing to derive all the physics from the post-release wobbles.
It’s probably a phone app.
It’s nice to know we have at least some military people thinking about how to keep us ahead of our adversaries.
"I do be building shit".
As for the press release: "I'm here so the goddamn engineers don't have to talk to the goddamn customers! I HAVE PEOPLE SKILLS!"
Office Space will live forever.
LRAAM. Bullsh1t Bingo? An unpronounceable acronym? I think not. Rolls off the tongue like diced garlic. "Eller-am".
Or just L-RAM. Not that hard to pronounce
L-Ram works. But a pronunciation guide in ALL CAPS doesn't give me the clues I need to speak the acronym professionally. I was born before Hooked on Phonics was a thing.
Nothing wrong with being greedy... look at all the stuff an SM-6 can do. Why wouldn't we want the new AAM to be multi-role, too?
Especially since the capability has existed (in nominal form anyway) for 40+ years!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAhEdCCc9U4
Every little capability you want adds years to the acquisition timeline. If you goldplate it, like Sal is asking, it'll be $30mil for each missile and in five years there will be twelve operational rounds, all of which will be cycled between the SCS CVW like the town bicycle. In ten years we'll have 36 rounds and be outranged even further than we are now.
Or, you put the weapon into service in as an anti-air weapon, and develop additional modes for it while you are already building and deploying block one…
That way, you get the long range missile now, and can add more capability in later blocks.
Like, well, the SM-6.
Making the long range missile also be a long range HARM, especially if retaskable on the pylon, is a really good idea, and would, re above, in fact put them on Growlers.
I am so old I remember my boss on my SAGE radar site envying the Navy for having Phoenix
Interestingly enough, the fit and form are very close to the Harpoon. After deductions in speed and range from a zero velocity launch from a Harpoon canister is there enough performance leftover to justify installation on surface ships?
Now you're just being greedy.
Quantity production drives down cost and Harpoon launchers don't require VLS.
My impression of that internal bay is that there's a hell of a lot of electronics and system connectors exposed once the bay is open during flight. What could possibly go wrong?
and is the full-out stealth load on an F-35, just 2 Malice?
CoPilot says:
The F-35 can carry up to 22,000 pounds of bombs and missiles in “beast mode,” but stealth missions typically limit it to 4–8 internal weapons.
Internal Weapons Capacity
In stealth mode, the F-35 carries weapons internally to maintain a low radar signature. Each F-35 has two internal bays, each with inboard and outboard stations. The F-35A and F-35C can carry up to 2,500 pounds per outboard station, allowing for large bombs like GBU-31 JDAMs or multiple smaller precision weapons such as GBU-39 SDBs. Typically, an F-35 can carry up to 8 SDBs internally or a combination of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions while preserving stealth
boltflight.com
boltflight.com
+1
. The F-35B, due to its lift fan for STOVL operations, has smaller internal bays and cannot carry larger bombs like the GBU-31, limiting it to lighter precision-guided munitions
boltflight.com
boltflight.com
External Weapons Capacity (“Beast Mode”)
When stealth is not a priority, the F-35 can carry additional ordnance on external hardpoints, dramatically increasing its payload. In this configuration, known as “beast mode,” the F-35 can carry up to 22,000 pounds of combined internal and external munitions, including large bombs and missiles
nationalsecurityjournal.org
nationalsecurityjournal.org
. For example, U.S. F-35s can carry six 2,000-pound JDAMs along with up to 14 AMRAAMs, though this reduces stealth, range, and agility
nationalsecurityjournal.org
nationalsecurityjournal.org
. The F-35A and F-35C can handle up to 18,000 pounds externally, while the F-35B can carry up to 15,000 pounds
boltflight.com
boltflight.com
.
Types of Bombs and Missiles
The F-35 can carry a wide range of ordnance, including:
Precision-guided bombs: GBU-31 JDAM, GBU-39 SDB
Nuclear bombs: B61-12 tactical nuclear bomb (F-35A certified)
Air-to-air missiles: AIM-120 AMRAAM (up to 6 internally with Sidekick adapter)
Standoff missiles: JASSM, LRASM
Anti-radiation missiles: AARGM-ER
The exact loadout depends on the mission, with stealth operations favoring internal carriage and high-threat environments, while “beast mode” maximizes destructive power at the cost of radar visibility
boltflight.com
boltflight.com
+3
.
The note re the Marines F-35B raises an interesting point, where Marine pilots operating off the America class baby flattops and tiny island jungle landing pads could carry 250nm A2A missiles.
Of course they have to be fed targets - is there any funded air combat droid design with space for a good long range air search radar? Or maybe one of smalll floaty combat droids with a baby AEGIS? Or is Malice what the long-not-yet-appearing satellite AWACS is supposed to queue, and thus we circle back to the ASAT discussion?
Don't know. Anyone monitoring this?
FWIW, it appears that the USMC has pretty much accepted lack of stealth for load. Most of the C's that I've seen pictured in operation have external pylons installed.
Maybe they keep some slick for door kickers, but as you would expect, they seem to prefer more ordnance.
Maybe they don't want radars getting used to seeing their full stealth capabilities
That seems like a stretch as it appears the USAF only operates in stealth. Maybe the USN as well.
At least I haven't seen any but USMC F-35s with external stores.
But it's actually a good idea. Cheap to do and you could even add a couple reflectors to enhance returns.
Anything wrong with designing and building a missile to fill a desperately needed capability gap (LRA to Air)...and then discovering it can do "other" things? Requires a multi-mission platform (air to ground, air to air...air to space?) which is largely the norm cross services, right?
Download this: https://comptroller.war.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2027/FY2027_Weapons.pdf
All the Pentagon weapons and funding profiles are included (for future discussions).
Then look at PDF page 89 (internal page 5-21) for the MACE budget summary, including the first batch of 353 missiles being procured in FY2027 from a new contractor.
Anybody remember AIM-47 Falcon?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-47_Falcon
A modern-day AIM-54 Phoenix. I heartily approve. As you said, it's even got the cool name. Another website suggested it had ramjet propulsion and an intake like the British Meteor, but I haven't seen a clean enough picture to tell.
I guess we have to hope for an F/A-XX capable of a six-pack loadout.
I guess we have to hope for an F-XX capable of a six-pack loadout.
There, I fixed it.
"Multi-Mission Affordable Capacity Effector (MACE) is a long-range, air-launched cruise missile engineered to redefine maritime dominance through affordable mass." The real name is not really that cool. "Capacity Effector"? Why not just say what it is. An anti-ship missile and figure out an acronym from that? While this missile's description talks about easy integration and manufacturing of current technologies, these stupid names are a guarantee of major problems. Years ago the Army couldn't say "truck" and the Navy couldn't say "frigate" or "minesweeper". And look what that brought us. If SECWAR wants to "man-up" the "Department of War" the first thing he needs to do is stop attaching stupid names to stuff meant to fight wars.
But it ISN'T an antiship missile. It's a 'cheap' multi-purpose air-to-ground munition, and I don't think attaching funny names to stuff is the reason we've been whiffing in the war-fighting arena. That business goes much farther back than even the Clinton years, where we started to have the troubles.
The problem with US Military warfighting isn't men in gucci tree-suits coming up with tongue-in-cheek names for stuff. The problem with the US Military warfighting is that the civilian command and control doesn't really want to do warfighting. That's both parties and it spans the era from Bush Senior through to today.
We had Bill Clinton not wanting to send armor to Somalia because he didn't like the optics (that turned out well). We had Bush Junior doing the Battle of Faluja twice because he couldn't find his balls when the Europeans started wagging their fingers at him. We had the Obama DEI years. We had the Biden 'should-we or shouldn't-we support Ukraine' years. Even today, we have the on-again/off-again Powerplant and Bridge Week.
The problem is the civilian leadership. It's pretty much always been the civilian leadership. They appoint the bad generals. They keep promoting them, even after they're shown to be dirtbags. They sign off on the pie-in-the-sky fantasy procurements or fail to manage the rock-simple 'must-have' procurements. (E.g. Constellation was as much a failure of the SecNav and SecDef to keep their eyes on the ball as it was NAVSEA's malfeasance.)
BLUF: You're trying to solve the wrong problem.
Your comment is a pretty good assessment, but we've had a few generals as SECDEF recently too. How would rate them considering what happened on their watch? And more than a few civilian bosses made great strides. Reagan's boy, Casper Weinberger, for one. Lead the defense buildup that bankrupted and broke the Soviet Union.
Lloyd Austin -- Swamp creature who was often asleep at the switch and too concerned with social issues. Connie went from 'minimum change' to 'gotta' meet NAVSEA or die' under his watch.
Esper -- Decent but didn't have enough time in the job to really turn the mess around.
Mattis -- Big reputation from Iraq but a swamp creature who didn't want to follow orders and wanted to continue our 'forever wars'.
Connie was doomed when the award was announced if not when the initial KPIs came out that didn't match the ship.
Don't necessarily disagree. Power consumption for EASR was much higher than I think the Italians realized before committing to this. However, SecNav and SecDef should have stepped in and said 'no', it's not going to be FREMM. At the very least, they shouldn't have let that mess carry on for four years with no progress and endlessly missed milestones.
"They appoint the bad generals"
From a list prepared by military officers of colonels promoted by military officers. Bad generals don't spring full-grown from the brow of Zeus.
But Officers aren't promoted by officers. They're promoted by Congress and the President. While officers of relatively low rank are frequently given a 'by', Officers of Major and higher have been held up by Congress and the President for perceived offenses. Ie if the president wants to do his homework and look at who he's promoting, he can.
Cool missile. Very nice to have. But the other half of the Tomcat+Phoenix calculus was the unrefuelled range and loiter time (and dash speed) of the F-14. Hopefully the flying combat droid tanker and the next CV-capable fighter will jointly (hah!) restore some of that range advantage over the needs-buddy-tanker-in-the-pattern current F/A airframe.
And begging to differ, the bingo of the bulls is marketing speak. If it were written by an engineering grad it would have formulas and graphs, and struggle in any resemblance to english.
One observation: The longer range for this missile is good. It helps compensate for shorter aircraft legs, like on F/A-18s. See: https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.cnas.org/documents/CNASReport-CarrierAirWing-151016.pdf?mtime=20160906082228
BTW, the author, Jerry Hendrix, Capt, USN (ret), is the guy at the White House/OMB heading the resurrection of Navy shipbuilding and the defense industrial base.
Let's see. Sm6 has agility and active seeker. Sm3 has a 3rd stage with 2 pulse motor in 13" diameter for oh, 20+ years. Both have killed a wide variety of things that fly in and above atmosphere. 2 dots make a line, 3 a plane, ...just thinking outloud
You are not wrong, but note it’s a 4d problem, with the time variable contribution gettin big when you are talking orbital velocities. This is the main problem with intercepting ballistic missiles - they are just moving so darn fast - and sats in orbit (in almost every case - boosted hypersonic motor attack profiles excepted) are faster.
I understand the problem quite well. Error baskets grow as function of time, if tspi is not refreshed.